Doctrine of Affections
by AlisonHarvey
Summary: It is the night of Sarah's return from the Labyrinth. Time divides as her regrets prove to have consequences. Confronted with what could have been, Sarah must choose her future one last time. JS. One-shot.


**Doctrine of Affections**

by Alison Harvey

Disclaimer: Labyrinth is not mine. Some dialogue from the movie appears here: it's  
certainly not my work and I wouldn't be so silly as assume you'd believe me if I _did_  
claim it was mine. Author's notes are posted at the end of the chapter.

-----

**Doctrine of Affections**: theory of musical aesthetics, widely accepted by late  
Baroque theorists and composers, that embraced the proposition that music is capable  
of arousing a variety of specific emotions within the listener.

"Doctrine of the Affections." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2004.

-----

_You have no power over me!_

Those six words said, she was back in her house, in the place where everything was  
blissfully, wonderfully and utterly _normal_.

Except for one last, lingering reminder of the last thirteen hours.

Feathers floated upwards in the air towards the ceiling, ignoring the mundane  
concept of gravity. Still dazed, Sarah watched the last few rush past her, caught in  
a breeze that had no beginning or end in this world. She reached up one hand,  
trying to snag one last feather as it danced madly towards the light. The wind  
snatched it from her grasp, driving the white fluff up and away.  


The breeze died; the feathers vanished with it. They belonged to another place,  
after all.

Pain rose within her, racing along neurons and ganglia and receptors faster than  
she could beat it back, lost in the kiss of down marking Jareth's abrupt departure. 

She could not forget his voice, or his terrible last words.

_Everything!_

She could still see the shining crystal in his hand, no more than a soap bubble as  
it burst against her skin. Even now, there was still slippery wetness on her  
fingers. 

She rubbed her fingertips together as she turned in a circle, looking around the  
room as if seeing it for the first time. 

The stairs, every inch of painted wood familiar, every creak and protruding nail  
memorized. The wood grain of the banister, slick and smooth to the touch. The  
carpet, worn to the nap by the slow years of feet from entrance to second floor. The  
desk table by the door--Karen's--she recognized with sudden anger, monstrous and  
ugly in Sarah's eyes.

She ached all over.

Her mother would never have chosen something so plain and...practical.

_Everything that you wanted I have done._

The Goblin King, only footsteps away in the broken castle, offering her dreams in a  
cracked voice that promised lurking, darker worlds. She remembered, wistfully, how  
he had seemed when he had swept into into her world hours before, crowned in night  
and cloaked in shadows and mist.

She half-sat, half-fell onto the carpet, pretending it had been her idea rather  
than her numb legs as the pain came again. It washed over her, beyond her, seeping  
into the woven rug beneath her, slowly draining away. She gratefully let the floor  
take her weight.

In the fallen archways, he had been so much more diminished than that first  
entrance. The thought prompted a little smile that faded as she remembered the sweep  
of emotion across his face as she won. The Goblin King had been beaten, and that  
dulled the victory somehow, made it seem a petty thing. She had wanted her brother  
gone and then demanded him back. The price for her wish was the king's realm. 

Was it meant to be that way?

The grandfather clock chimed quietly in the corner. The tones rang through her  
head, bringing another round of dizzying pain. The brassy pendulum marked the  
moments she twisted on the rug, praying for the pain to leave.

_I have reordered time._

For the last moment, pain flared so bright she could see it, hanging in a haze  
around her as she clenched her fingers in the red Oriental-patterned pile--"Just a  
touch of class, Mark. Really, why did you let her keep all the floors bare?"--and  
wished for it all to go away.

_And I have done it all for you._

-----

**Shadja**  
//base chakra/survival/self-sufficiency/need to possess//  


-----

The casket hit the opposite wall with a thud, its contents spilling down the floor  
in a tangle of radiance and light. Gold coins chimed together as they fell into  
messy heaps; gems that shone like stars, the light inside them pulsing softly,  
scattered across the floor. 

Riches beyond imagination lay in the room, which stretched so far into the distance  
that it began to curve at its edges like the horizon. Not a single patterned and  
hand-cut tile was untouched by some rare wonder of the world: gems and precious  
metals competed with beautiful objects of twisted wood, ivory and sculpted marble,  
cold and dull next to the hothouse flowers blooming in the unnatural place. In the  
corner, amongst an astonishing menageries, a horse-like animal whinnied softly,  
tossing its grassy mane as its long-eared handler turned a soft, round gaze to the  
fallen casket.

"Bring it here," said the girl. She was not a woman, not a child, caught in her  
skinny, androgynous body with clear dismay. She wore a confection of lilac frills  
that was more the idea of a fancy dress than the reality, as if a rough sketch had  
been animated before any gentle improvements could be suggested. She wore a corset  
underneath the layers of lace and organdy, which went some way towards giving her  
the hips and breasts she wanted. No amount of fabric or trimming or pearls laced  
around her throat and hips, however, could disguise that she was still very young.

The handler looked nervously from his charge to the box, its lid nearly severed and  
dangling from one twisted hinge. He whistled a short tune that ended on an  
interrogative note. The creature beside him stamped its hoof in a negative against  
rare living stone spread out for Her Majesty's examination.

"I'm afraid he won't come," the handler said, cringing in anticipation. He did not  
have to wait long.

"Bring it here!" she shrieked, a wild wind rising in the chamber. "Jareth!"

The handler cried out as he was caught in the whirlwind, grabbing for the safety of  
his untouched charge. The wind saw his move and blew away faster, screaming for the  
wall in a blur of motion.

Then, mercifully, it stopped. The handler sobbed against the gems he fell on,  
oblivious to their bright pulses as his tears fell on them.  


"Sarah," Jareth said gently after ensuring the handler was not injured. "You cannot  
continue to do this to your presents."

"You promised me everything," she said to him, pouting. The expression was rapidly  
becoming her preferred "This is junk!"

Jareth looked at her with red-rimmed, sunken eyes, worn from lack of time and  
sleep. He wore ash-grey silks, loose against his thinning frame. His hair was dull  
and lifeless, small evidence of the rest his magic would soon forcibly extract. It  
had been days. It had been a lifetime.

"As you wish, your highness."

-----

**Rishabh**  
//navel chakra/sensuality/creativity//  


-----

"Jareth," she purred. "I've been looking all over for you."

Sarah's dress was skin-tight, her skin creamy against the black velvet. It was far  
less a dress than a skirt, but she had never claimed modesty was her forte.

When he did not look up from his work, she wrapped an arm around him, tugging his  
chair back from his desk carefully, so that he could feel the brush of her breasts  
against his shoulder blades. She reached around him to stroke the tops of his  
thighs, molding her hands to the muscles beneath her touch. Pausing to waste a  
seductive smile on the back of his head, she let her hands wander further up his  
thighs to where she could feel him hard and ready through the thin material of his  
breeches.  


"You don't need to work right now," she murmured into his hair, nuzzling into the  
silky fall as her hands slipped under his shirt near his waist.

"Perhaps not," he agreed with a wicked smile. "But whatever shall I say to  
Gabrielle when she wonders where I am at dinner?"

She quickly withdrew, kneading his shoulders in slow circles.

"I told you not to marry her, darling," she offered, pausing to kiss the back of  
his neck. "You could have had me and been happy."

Jareth smirked as he stood up and turned to draw her into his arms. "Declares the  
woman that told me who to marry," he said, pulling her close against him. "You never  
would have accepted the same offer."

She smiled and lifted her head for a lingering kiss, taking advantage of his  
distraction and letting her hands wander freely.

"I never wanted to be the goblin queen," she said as she pulled away. "I merely  
wanted the king all to myself."

"Depraved woman," he chastised. "Whatever shall I do with you?" He stroked a finger  
down her cheek, replacing his touch with his mouth as he stooped to kiss her cheek.

"Forget about dinner," Sarah replied, her eyes sparkling with mischief.

Jareth laughed. "She can wait for you."

-----

**Ghandar**  
//third chakra/personal power/willfulness/energy//  


-----

The beast approached the throne in chains, bowing its head only after the goblin  
guards viciously yanked on the collar, spiked on the inside.  


"What do you have to say for yourself?" the Goblin Queen asked, her voice razor-  
sharp as she considered the traitor. "You were told to never enter this realm again."  


The beast roared, but said nothing.  


"No rock calling," she chided, shaking a leather-clad finger in mock dismay. "I've  
already worked a little spell to take care of that."  


"Now," the Queen said, leaning forward in her pale, beautiful throne. She  
absentmindedly caressed a golden snake bracelet that coiled around her wrist. "Tell  
me where the others are."  


Sullen silence was her only reply. 

Sarah's eyes narrowed sharply, barely visible behind the cobwebbed black veil that  
covered her face. "Don't deny me," she said, her voice clipped and precise. "What  
you have endured until now will be but the merest shadow of what you will go through  
if you do not answer my questions."   


No sound.  


A crystal crashed against the filthy floor, spraying crystal shards everywhere. A  
discolored mist rose upwards, forming a ticking ebony clock that marked the minutes  
and hours with knives.   


"Tell me where they are," she said casually. "I have no more time to give you."  


"Sa-rah," Ludo moaned.  


Sarah stood in one rapid, angry movement, violet and black skirts skimming the  
floor as she stepped forward. She clutched the horned pendant between her breasts  
with one hand, pointing at Ludo with the other as she chanted a dark and ugly spell.  


Ludo vanished.  


The goblins, having fled the first time she raised her voice, returned slowly,  
peeking around doorframes, windowsills, and solid items of furniture as they gauged  
the malice in the Goblin Queen's slight figure as she paced.   


One goblin caught her gaze.  


"You," she sneered, crooking a hand in the hapless goblin female's direction.  
Against her will, she walked towards the queen, windmilling her arms frantically  
against the magical summons that bound her.  


Sarah watched her struggle, amused. Only when the power forced the goblin to her  
knees did she sigh and release the spell with a demure twist of her gloved hand.  


"Find the dwarf and the knight," the Goblin Queen commanded. "They will be  
somewhere near the castle, planning a heroic entrance. Perhaps near the gardens, or  
the gardener's former quarters."  


The goblin looked studiously down at the floor. "An' then, yer majesty?"  


"Good!" Sarah exclaimed. "Intelligence. Very good!" She clapped her hands together  
once in delight, drawing them apart to frame a grey, stained crystal. Mist rose  
through small cracks in the crystal, sending vapor into the air. It smelled of  
sulfur and ether.  


She had never discovered why they were not the pure, bright magic that had been  
Jareth's trademark.  


She hadn't cared much in the heady days after his death.   


"Give them this," Sarah said with a smile of pointed teeth, handing the frightened  
goblin a perfect, succulent peach. She walked to the window, staring out at the  
orange-tinted clouds of the sunset, shot through with red streaks like bleeding  
gashes. In the distance, she could see the shadow of the crystal moon beginning to  
rise over the mountains.  


The goblin scuffed the floor with a foot, cradling the peach carefully.  


"Well?" the Goblin Queen asked, turning. She raised her eyebrows when she saw the  
messenger had not yet left. "Go!"  


The goblin female bowed and hurried out the door, the others giving her envious  
glances as she ran to find Hoggle and Sir Didymus.

-----

**Madhyam**  
//heart chakra/love/compassion/acceptance/trust//  


-----

"Mommy!"  


Sarah turned with a broad smile to her daughter, scooping the four-year-old up  
easily. She looked down at the bundle of energy that wriggled in her arms.  


"And how was class, my little goblin?"  


Anne scrunched up her nose, causing her dark curls to fall into her face. Balancing  
Anne on her hip with one careful hand, Sarah pushed the hair back behind her ear,  
tugging the curls lightly behind the yellow daisy-print headband.  


"I'm no goblin!" Anne announced.  


"Thank goodness for that," Sarah said, tweaking the girl's nose. "Because I don't  
give goblins cookies, and I certainly don't take them to play in the park."  


"The park?" Anne whispered, her eyes huge. "And cookies?"  


Sarah nodded solemnly. Anne thought about this and then threw her arms around  
Sarah's neck a bit too tightly.  


"Careful," the woman said lightly, gently unwinding the pale arm from her throat.  
"We need to get going before the cookies go bad. They have to be eaten way before  
dinner or they'll go all funny." She put her hands around Anne's waist and lowered  
her to the ground. Placing her hands on her hips, she stared down at the girl, who  
was doing her best not to race ahead of her mother to the car. "Do you think you can  
do that?"  


Anne fidgeted, doing her best not to spoil the treat. "Yes."  


Sarah smiled, caught in the moment. The camera was too far away, so she settled for  
locking the memory in her mind as perfectly as she could. "Then we'd better get to  
the car quick!"  


"Race you there!" Anne said, running in an instant. She beat the deliberately slow  
Sarah to the car easily, grinning as she clung to the door handle.  


"Mommy?"  


The voice was carefully calculated to be as sweet and light as possible.  
Sarah sighed. Anne was a born manipulator.  


"Yes?"  


"Do we have any extra cookies?"  


It wasn't a normal request. Anne liked treats, but she never asked for more than  
what she was given.  


Sarah looked at her daughter, puzzled. "We might, if you tell me why."  


"I wanted to feed the bird," Anne said innocently, looking up at her mother with  
her own green-grey eyes.   


Sarah grinned in sudden understanding. "Cookies are for little girls. We feed the  
swans bread crumbs because it's their favorite treat. In fact, I know I have a big  
bag of crumbs in the glove compartment."  


"Not that bird," Anne said, exasperated. "The white one with the funny face and big  
eyes. The one near us every time we're in the park. That one."  


Sarah froze.

-----

**Pancham**  
//throat chakra/communication/expression/faith// 

-----

"I miss you," Sarah said softly to the mirror. "Hoggle, Ludo...Sir Didymus? Are you  
there?"  


It felt strange to drag the names up out of the past. The images that came forth in  
the mirror, when they finally flickered into existence, were far different from what  
she remembered. Hoggle's face had more lines, and his clothes were thinner and more  
patched than whole. Ludo's hair was turning silver at the tips and down his back,  
and although the same childlike innocence still shone in his eyes, it barely masked  
some deeper pain. Didymus's one eye was dim and clouded, his whiskers bent.   


All three were together in a lit room, an abandoned deck of what looked like  
playing cards spread out in a strange pattern. She spent a moment trying to peer  
through the unfocused image and determine whether it was a card reading or the  
Underground version of gin rummy before giving up.  


"Sarah?" said Hoggle, peering into the mirror. His struggle to find a good viewing  
spot made her feel better about the way the picture kept fracturing and  
superimposing her reflection.  


"Could you--" she trailed off, rephrasing what she had been about to ask, "--come  
and visit me? It's been a long time, and there's so much I'd like to hear."  


The picture disappeared several times before she managed to hear enough of Hoggle's  
extra-loud reply.  


"...too long, Sarah...now...King...gone...might be...last time..............talk"  


"What?" she said, unable to figure out what he meant. Cursing at her own  
reflection, not giving way to what she wanted to see, she put her hand on the mirror.  


The outline of her hand glowed. She jerked it back, startled to find she was  
breathing as though she'd run a long sprint, her heart pounding madly. She watched  
the outline fade away, a bit worried about what had just happened.  


Hoggle's image returned in crystal-clear focus. Didymus had gone, she realized with  
a pang.  


"So you can give it power," he said, shaking his head. "We always guessed, we did,  
but it's different to know it."  


"What's happening, Hoggle?" she asked, alarmed. "What's going on? Why are we having  
these problems?"  


"You mean you didn't know?"  


She shook her head. "No."  


Hoggle took a deep breath, and she braced, recognizing something even stronger than  
his usual pessimism. "Jareth's losing his power, Sarah."  


Thoughts of Marxism and then the French Revolution filled her head, but a tricolor  
seemed an odd precedent for what she thought Hoggle had implied. "You mean...a  
goblin revolution?"  


He frowned. "That won't ever happen."  


"Then what?"  


"Magic," Hoggle said curtly. "He's been losing a little bit at a time he uses it,  
and he's almost out."  


"Such a pity," Sarah said sardonically, trying to imagine Jareth as mortal and  
powerless as the rest of the human race. "I can't imagine how that's a bad thing."  


"It's everything!" Hoggle yelled, shocking her out of a daydream in which an  
impoverished Jareth flipped burgers at a fast food joint. "Without his magic, he  
can't protect us," he finished sadly, giving her a lightning-quick look before  
dropping his eyes.  


She opened her mouth, but he cut her off. "There's more to the Underground then the  
labyrinth, Sarah. There are things out there," he shuddered, "that would find the  
labyrinth a right tasty snack and us all just the seasoning on top."  


She paled. "Then you should be getting out of there."  


"No magic," Hoggle said shortly. "Didymus knows a naiad that might have a bird  
friend who could get us out. Ludo might be safe, but we're not sure. In the  
meantime, we're just sitting and waiting for Jareth to die." He hunched over in  
front of the mirror, despondent.  


"Die?" she said, reeling. "It's that bad? You have to get out!" She touched the  
mirror again; her suspicions confirmed when she again left a glowing palm print.  
"Hoggle?"  


"Yes?"  


She was hesitant to describe the somewhat petty reasons she had had for calling  
them this day, but perhaps there had been a reason. There might be one way she could  
help, and perhaps that's why she'd had to call in the first place. Sarah began to  
feel the first stirrings of hope. "The past few years, I've noticed that more and  
more I can do...what I think you'd call magic. That's why I called you tonight. I  
bet I can use it somehow if you tell me how..."  


Hoggle shook his head. "That's not your magic."  


She sank into her chair weakly, resting her forehead against the cool wood of the  
teak vanity. Ludo stood behind Hoggle when she lifted her head again to look  
through, watching her sadly.  


"How do I give it back?"  


"You come through the mirror and back. Then you give it back to Jareth," Hoggle  
said. He turned away, and she heard what she thought she remembered as the  
Underground version of swearing as he talked to someone just to the left of the  
mirror where she couldn't see. When he turned back, he was colder than he'd ever  
been.

"And as soon as you can. We don't want to die either, us."  


She gulped and stepped up onto the vanity using the chair as a stepping-stool,  
placing both hands against the mirror. Hoggle and Ludo watched her eagerly. Again,  
the outline of her hands glowed and she felt that rushing sensation. This time she  
didn't pull away, and felt her hands sink into the liquid silver of the mirror.  


Then, as she pushed forwards, her hands hit what felt like hard stone.  


"I can't go through!"  


Hoggle narrowed his eyes. "You need to hurry, Sarah. Jareth'll die by dawn, the  
goblins say. The goblins are never wrong."  


"But I can't!" she said, shoving against the stone. "It's stopping me!"  


"No!" shouted Hoggle. "You can't do this to us! Give it back to us!"  


Ludo moaned softly behind him.  


She watched in horror as he began pounding on his side of the mirror with his  
fists. She could feel the stone shaking beneath her fingertips, faint ripples of  
compressed energy reaching her. But clearly not enough.  


"Tell me what I can do," she said, panicked.  


"He should have taken it back from you when he realized, instead of waiting for you  
to return it. It wasn't yours to take from us!" Hoggle yelled. He turned away from  
the mirror, scrambling out of her sight only to return with a large stone in his  
hand.  


Sarah knew exactly what he planned to do with it, too. As she lifted a hand free of  
the quicksilver to stop him, it brushed against something protruding from the  
invisible barrier. She stopped, closing her hand around something round that just  
fit into her palm.  


Walls always have doors.  


"Hoggle! I know how--"  


The image shattered as the other mirror broke.  


-----

**Dhaivat**  
//chakra of the inner eye/mental intelligence/psyche/intuition// 

-----

She had told him every night what she regretted; had said it a hundred million  
times as she waltzed in his arms in the ballroom that had haunted her since she was  
fifteen. 

Sometimes she sobbed it to him, breaking down in his arms as the tears ran down her  
cheeks, streaking the mascara and eye shading into a macabre Tragedia mask of violet  
and marigold and raven's-wing black. Sometimes she screamed it to him, beating her  
fists ineffectually against his chest as she told him how stupid she'd been. And  
sometimes she whispered it dreamily into his ear as the lover she had always wanted  
to be.  


He never heard a word she said. She had long since realized that it was a wishful  
fantasy, not some conjured bridge between her world and his.  


Despite these confessions, confrontations, and long conversations, the dream came  
every night anew, torturing her sleep in mingled pleasure and pain.  


As long as she dreamed, she remembered him. She was frightened that the night he  
did not return in that same eternal moment would be the night he would pass from  
memory and time forever.  


Tonight, she feared that the change in her dream signaled its departure.

Instead of the obscene ballroom with its leering dancers and discordant music,  
there was a pure white room, tiles shining under the heeled slippers she wore in the  
dance. The dress had shifted gradually as her girlish fancies shaded into maturity  
and resignation; instead of pure, virginal white she wore a dark green ball gown  
with a modest neckline that narrowed as it fell, clinging to her waist and hips  
before swirling out at her feet.

Perhaps that would change, too, as she became too arthritic for the vigorous  
waltzes she knew by heart from dancing in her dreams every night. 

She had been the wonder of her ballroom dance class, and refused to share her  
secret with the envious, curious women.  


There was no ceiling, another startling difference. Tonight she was alone with the  
Goblin King, dancing between elegant candelabras under a velvety night sky. The  
weather was mild enough to dance, but chill enough that the exercise would be  
welcome.  


She tilted her head back, looking up at the unfamiliar stars and shining glassy  
moon, soaking in the pale light that filtered through the bright candles. She had  
long since memorized every line and plane of her partner's face; the sky was new,  
and perhaps never to be seen again.  


There was an established pattern that seemed well on its way to fulfilling itself  
tonight. She would begin to dance with Jareth and the hours would fly by without a  
word or proof that he had ever been a living, breathing man. When her feet began to  
tire the music would slow, Jareth would bow, regardless of what stage her confession  
had progressed to, and she would flee. His face would always be nothing more than a  
damnable, enigmatic smile.  


The cardboard Goblin King and the woman who loved him desperately.  


Perhaps she should have considered the changes more carefully and realized what  
they meant. Her heart nearly stopped when something entirely new happened, something  
without precedent.  


"Sarah," Jareth said, looking down at her with intent eyes. "Are you happy?"  


_Happy,_ she wanted to scream. _I'm heading into old age with my eyes wide open, and  
what I see scares me. I ache more each day for something I barely remember. I have a  
cat and two goldfish, not someone beside me as each day ends._  


_And I certainly don't have you._  


"I'm happy," she told him calmly, smiling at him. It was only a dream, after all.  
She was weary of confessing her sins year after year to a conjured shape of dream-  
stuff.

"I'm glad," he said quietly.  


They danced more. She found it hard to breathe as she clung to him, savoring the  
steps she had learned and retraced for years. Too soon, her feet began to hurt, and  
she stumbled.  


The music slowed. Jareth gently disentangled himself from her grasp, looking at her  
tenderly as he bowed to her.

"I still love you," he said, and smiled. It came slowly to his face, as if  
distilled from the pain she imagined she read in his eyes. She wanted her lover to  
want her, after all.  


She smiled back, unnerved by the sudden gift of change granted her tonight.

"I made my choice," she said, feeling only slight guilt as she lied. Tonight he  
seemed so real, so vulnerable. She sighed, unable to hurt him now even in the  
privacy of her sleep. "Perhaps it would comfort you to know that I, too, am still  
alone."  


"But you are happy," he pointed out gently.  


She nodded stiffly, looking steadily into his unequal pupils, willing the moment to  
last forever. She knew that tonight was the last dream, and fought to hold it even  
as the final words slipped away.  


"Thirty-seven years," Jareth said, resignation in his voice. "You remain as lovely as  
ever."  


Thirty-seven years, and she still imagined him the perfect gentleman.   


Then he was gone, and Sarah awake in her bed.  


There was a crystal between her hands, glowing gently in the darkened room.

-----

_Everything!_

Sarah woke.

The room was pitch black, but she knew its shape and the looming objects that she  
felt more than heard. It was her bedroom in her parent's house. And...

She reached out a fumbling hand to pull the cord of the lamp. She blinked rapidly  
as her eyes adjusted to the bright light, realizing that the curtains were drawn to  
shut out daylight, not the night.

In fact, when she looked out the window she could see Becky, the mailwoman,  
shutting the mailbox from the driver's seat of the mail van. She waved cheerfully to  
Sarah's next-door-neighbor, Mrs. Murrell. Mrs. Murrell worked long hours at an  
accounting firm but never on Saturdays.

Becky worked only on Saturdays; Sarah loved to talk to her. 

Saturday morning, however, she had slept in, waking up at noon to go to the park.  
She had read the play through excitedly, performing the best parts aloud for Merlin  
in her dress and crown of flowers. Then she had come home.

Now, it seemed, it was morning again.

What had just happened? A whole day had passed, and now it was back again.

_I have reordered time. I have turned the world upside-down._

She flinched, but there was no pain, no repercussions for remembering his words.  
The strange memories, not hers and yet completely hers, flitted through her mind.  
Today, nothing was impossible.

A brand new day. He had done this for her.

Well, then. She knew what to do.

She dressed, careful to wear exactly what she had worn the last time she had been  
through the day. There was something she half-knew about time paradoxes but her mind  
was already racing ahead as she bundled the book carefully into her dress, said a  
curt goodbye to Karen and exited, stage left.

"Don't forget to be back tonight in time to baby sit," Karen called irritably out  
the door.

Sarah ran to the park, fumbling to braid her crown of flowers. She slid the dress  
over her head with trembling fingers, pinning the crown over her hair carefully.  
Merlin watched her with soft eyes.

She began to recite.

"Give me the child," she said, somewhat annoyed when her voice trembled. Looking  
down at her hands for a moment, she continued. "Give me the child," she began again.  
"Through dangers untold and hardships unnumbered, I have fought my way here to the  
castle beyond the Goblin City, to take back the child you have stolen."

Behind her, Merlin cocked his head, watching the owl that had landed on the statue.  
The owl blinked. Thunder rumbled faintly in the distance.

Sarah's voice, strong and confident now, continued with her lines. "For my will is  
as strong as yours...and my kingdom is as great..."

She frowned, pausing, scarcely daring to breathe. Thunder rolled again, slightly  
nearer. She looked up to see grey clouds darkening overhead. 

"Hello," said the Goblin King.

Sarah turned around to see him, learning against the obelisk. He wore grey breeches  
and a loose white shirt, plain and simple clothes. His hair fluttered as a breeze picked  
up, smelling of rain and lightning and green growing things.

"What happened?" she asked, unsure of where to begin, or what to say, but knowing he  
behind all the strange moments, and that he had come as she called to answer her  
questions. "What was all that I saw? Why did it hurt? Why did you do...this?" she asked,  
sweeping her hand out to enclose the park at the last.

He smiled, small lines appearing at the corner of his eyes. He was paler than she  
remembered, and he leaned against the obelisk more for support than for appearance.

"So full of questions, I see."

"You're hurt," she said, crossing to him and reaching out for his arm.

He sidestepped away before she could touch him, and she felt the ghostly echo of  
that more brazen Sarah. She blushed.

Jareth had stopped smiling. "I reordered time. What you encountered was merely an  
unfortunate side effect."

"But what was all of that?"

"Time has possibilities," he said after a long pause, clearly searching for the  
right words. "When I reordered it, I rewound everything you had done, every choice  
that you made." He looked at her, staring directly into her eyes, and she nearly  
stepped back at the intensity she saw there. "And every choice you could have made.  
What you saw was a spectrum of possibility."

"So I could have been any one of those?"

"I hope not," he murmured, more to himself than to her.

"But why?" she asked, closing the distance between them. She stood only a few  
inches away, looking up at him, even more unsure of what was happening. She wanted  
to be close, but didn't know the how or the why. 

"To save my kingdom," Jareth replied. "And..."

She sensed the potentials hidden in his unfinished sentence, the hidden  
possibilities and desires and words unspoken. With the sudden awakening that had  
started that evening, she divined what he would never say aloud.

"You wanted to give me that choice again."

He merely looked at her.

"I came because I wanted to ask if I could try it again," she offered, trying to  
break that silent tension. The thunder, long forgotten, sounded again, and she  
realized it was about to rain.

"There are terms," Jareth said slowly. "If you choose to repeat this day exactly,  
you cannot go through with the memories of the previous time."

She raised her chin proudly. "You're just upset because I beat you."

He narrowed his eyes, but she saw the good humor lurking behind it. "And you're  
concerned that your luck might not hold true a second time. I may not be so  
generous, Sarah."

She was suddenly afraid. "Will I remember anything?"

She paused, even more afraid of a new possibility. "What if I make the same choice?"

Jareth looked at her gravely, the humor draining from his face in an instant. "I  
can erase the memories from her mind." He leaned over, breaking their unspoken  
desire for space, and tapped her between her budding breasts with a gloved finger.  
"But you will still know--a part of you will." He flashed an amused  
grin as she looked down and blushed to see how intimately he had touched her.  


Just as swiftly, he receded, drawing himself up slowly.

Sarah nodded. "I accept."

Only then did Jareth reach out to her and draw her to him with one elegant gesture,  
bringing her just near enough to kiss her forehead chastely. She looked up at him,  
hope in her eyes, confident in her choice.

He stepped back, bringing his hands together and drawing them apart until a  
delicate crystal appeared between his palms.

"For you, Sarah," Jareth said, his voice brushing her name like the touch of  
feathers. "The choice is yours."

Sarah reached out hesitantly and took it from his cupped palms. It shimmered for a  
moment and then vanished.

She looked up to see him one last time

He had already disappeared.

A second passed slowly, ticking somewhere in the castle beyond the goblin city.

She wondered what had drawn her attention. Turning, she saw Merlin, lying quietly  
in the grass near her feet. He stood up at her glance, shaking himself, then barked  
once, sharply. Thunder rolled in the distance.

The clock in the pavilion began to chime.

"Oh no, Merlin!" Sarah said with alarm. "I don't believe it! It's seven o'clock!"  
She whirled, already running in the direction of her house. "Come on!"

The owl flew away from his perch in the tree, winging off through the first  
raindrops as the storm began.

_And I have done it all for you._

-----

**Nishad**  
//crown chakra/harmony/devotion/transcendance/peace// 

-----

"My love," Sarah said, leaning against Jareth's shoulder. She felt him kiss her  
hair and draw her nearer.  


They stood, locked in a private moment that needed no words--any spoken sound had  
been uttered in the countless times they had held each other. They had gone beyond  
words, movements, thoughts. There was everything in the clasp of their hands,  
drawn up between their hearts.  


Sarah felt Jareth's heartbeat underneath her fingertips and sighed, counting the  
rhythm that she had attuned herself to a lifetime ago. She smiled a secret smile  
into the black silk of his shirt.  


"I love you," Jareth said, and she knew he was smiling down at her, despair and  
loneliness long since washed into the peace they shared.  


Giving herself one last, contented sigh, Sarah pressed herself close to her  
husband. She lifted up her head, losing herself in his warm gaze. "Shall we dance?"  


The invisible orchestra had already begun. She shared a smile with Jareth as  
the waltz began.  


They danced under the crystal moon, lost in each other as eternity dawned.

-----

**Anhad**  
//cosmic silence//

-----

  


-----

**Author's notes:**  
  
Yes, somewhat fluffy.   
  
Written on 05-Feb-04 as a plotbunny that refused to leave my head. Beta'd by the  
amazingly punctual songbird, the consummate beta.  
  
Wondering about the references? The Doctrine of Affections is defined at the beginning  
of the story. The eight foreign words are terms of North Indian classical music: the  
first seven are the seven notes of the Saptak, which is (very roughly) equivalent  
to the eight-note scale of Western music, if you need a helpful comparison.  
There are many texts in several beliefs pairing this seven-note scale with the seven  
major chakra centers of the body. Each vignette in Doctrine of Affections is based  
one the pairing of a note with one of the seven chakras: for the truly curious, I  
assigned shadja to the basal chakra and worked my way up.  
  
Each note, therefore, corresponds with the emotions associated with its chakra.  
You'll find that I took certain liberties in interpretating an extreme emotion of  
chakra five and somewhat in chakra six.  
  
And having written and posted this, all last distractions are out of my head as I  
settle in to write.  
  
Have comments? I welcome any and all criticism. The form was very experimental and I'd  
be happy to hear any comments on the idea, style or grammar.  
  
-AH

  



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